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Door Hinge Rebuild
1947- 1955.1 Chevy/GMC
Specific
Pined Door Hinge - General for All Trucks
 For
many of the older trucks, there are no aftermarket sources for new door
hinges and rebuilding maybe your only option for worn hinges. Used
hinges are in limited supply and there cost well exceeds the cost of
rebuilding many times over.
Whether
your restoring your truck or just keeping up with general maintenance, the
door hinges will require attention at some point. With 30 plus years
of use and maybe a rebuild or two on them already, hinge rebuilding can
present a challenge. In this article we will be walking through the
process of rebuilding door hinges using aftermarket products and
materials. When completed, these hinges will be better than new.
As in most any project, cleaning of the old
parts is the first phase. Here you can see our hinges in the
blasting cabinet, ready to be cut down to bare steel. If blasting
equipment is not available, disassemble the hinges by removing the hinge
pins and springs. This will allow you to clean and wire brush
your parts prior to any new work. A parts washer also makes quick
work of grease and dirt.  We
plan to powder coat our hinges, so blasting is the best option in this
case. Paint stripping and wire brushing can achieve pretty much the
same results for those without blasting equipment.
Now that the hinges are clean down to
the bare steel, we can tear down and inspect them for damage. Some
of the damage we found included seized & broken pins, broken &
missing springs, stress fractures and missing parts. It is important to
keep each hinge together as a unit and not to mix parts. Each
hinge is unique in its position: i.e. left top, left bottom, right top and
right bottom.
Once the hinges are disassembled,
inspect hinges for damage. One area to look close at are the spring mounting holes in both
the hinge frame and the hinge itself. Another area is the hinge pin hole. In
some cases the pin may have seized in the hinge. This will cause the pin to wear an oval
shaped hole in the frame. In most cases this problem can be corrected with
over-sized pins found in most rebuild kits. If you cannot correct the problem this
way, you will have to weld the pin holes over and re-drill them to new pin size.
 The
photo (right) shows the new pin kit. This particular kit offers a
bronze bushing set. The bushing set is an upgrade over using just a
new pin alone. The bushings ride on the pivot points where
there use to be steel to steel contact. The bushings also take up
any wear in this area and provide a smoother action. Bushings
also prevent your pivot points from further wear.
The new pins are of a
hard tool type steel and will not bend like stock pins. Since
these pins also insert into the bushings, the harder steel will not
wear the hinge hole either. Also note, that the head of the
pin is splined. These splines, when driven into the hinge
frame will key the new pin into place and keep it from turning in
the frame.  [more]
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